Sounds like a typical young startup hiring process (young mostly on the age of the company not the employees although it's hard to ignore the correlation)
More established companies will probably have 30 to mid 30 as the median age, and will have much more professional hiring process (relatively)
Also there is a saying that goes around: A's hire A's, B's hire C's
There are cases where you will be declined as "overqualified" or "no cultural fit" when they mean "will replace my job or at best make me look bad" and "too old" respectively.
I wouldn't give up yet. There are a lot of software architect positions if you have the relevant experience. Median age is higher than 30 I'm pretty sure.
But the "we don't have enough developers" is a blunt lie, "we don't have enough excellent developers" is also a lie. "We don't have enough rock star developers who are ok not being paid enough and have no aspiration to become team leads and just want to code all their career and work overtime" is probably more accurate.
More established companies will probably have 30 to mid 30 as the median age, and will have much more professional hiring process (relatively)
Also there is a saying that goes around: A's hire A's, B's hire C's
There are cases where you will be declined as "overqualified" or "no cultural fit" when they mean "will replace my job or at best make me look bad" and "too old" respectively.
I wouldn't give up yet. There are a lot of software architect positions if you have the relevant experience. Median age is higher than 30 I'm pretty sure.
But the "we don't have enough developers" is a blunt lie, "we don't have enough excellent developers" is also a lie. "We don't have enough rock star developers who are ok not being paid enough and have no aspiration to become team leads and just want to code all their career and work overtime" is probably more accurate.